Keeping Our Local Parks Clean and Beautiful

In 2015, Texas Master Naturalist Brazos Valley Chapter decided to join the Adopt-A-Greenway Program and adopt two local city parks, Brison and Gabbard Parks, in College Station. Our promise/mission is to pick up trash in these two parks twice a year for two years. We did our first trash pick-up on May 02, 2015. Five of us managed to remove 10 bags worth of trash in two and half hours. Our group found lots of plastic bags, plastic bottles, glass bottles, and other garbage along Bee Creek and the wooded areas in the north east corner of Brison Park. 

We found a lot of plastic materials along Bee Creek in Brison Park.

Five of us managed to remove 10 bags worth of trash.

We did our second trash pick-up on November 21, 2015. Eighteen of us with grabbers and trash bags in our hands went to work. In two hours, we managed to remove nine 33-Gal bags worth of trash from the two parks. Again, we found a lot more trash in Brison Park than Gabbard Park. 

We fanned out to cover every inch of Gabbard Park.

The sky was overcast and the temperature was around 60 F,
perfect weather to work.

We split into two crews, started at both ends of Bee Creek, and
worked our way to the middle of Brison Park.

We managed to remove a total of nine 33-Gal bags of trash
from the two parks.

The yuckiest item we picked up on November 21 was a used diaper and the largest piece of plastic we found was a no-parking sign.

The largest piece of plastic trash we found in the wooded areas of Brison Park.

In addition to our commitment to Adopt-A-Greenway Program, we partnered with local geocachers to clean up local parks in Bryan. We had two CITO (Cache In Trash Out) events in 2015. We cleaned up Carter Creek Nature Trail on April 26 and Astin Recreational Area on August 22. (Check out Sarah's blog for details regarding our April 26 CITO event). 

Master Naturalists hard at work at Carter Creek Nature Trail.
Some of us are geocachers too.

We picked up a lot of trash mostly around the retention pond area
of Carter Creek Nature Trail.

Master Naturalists worked side-by-side with experienced and
newbie geocachers to keep Astin Recreation Area clean.